Coming out a year after Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) helped elevate the comic book genre to be taken more seriously by adults, The Flash: The Original Series was a step backwards. Seemingly geared more towards children, the series features basic “hero versus villain” stories with generic characters and a limited budget. It only lasted a single season, and over the 22 episodes, it’s clear why it was cancelled.
Buy The Flash: The Original Series Blu-rayDeveloped and executive produced by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, screenwriters of The Rocketeer, The Flash starred John Wesley Shipp as Barry Allen, a Central City police forensic scientist. As happened in the comics, a freak combination of lightning and chemicals gives Barry super-speed powers. Barry is assisted by S.T.A.R. Labs scientist Dr. Tina McGee (Amanda Pays), who helps him deal with his powers. She is also a romantic interest, although the status fluctuates each episode.
Rocketeer artist Dave Stevens altered the traditional Flash costume: dulling the red uniform,removing the yellow boots, replacing the yellow trim with gold, and altering the bolts on the headpiece. Clearly done on the cheap and before the use of computers, Barry’s speed is created through camera tricks, like altering the recording speed or multiple exposure. Barry, and the writers, don’t seem to fully grasp his abilities as he too often falls victim to attacks from bad guys more often than the fastest man alive should.
As readers of the comics know, the Flash has a pretty good rogues’ gallery yet for some reason, it takes over half the season before they are used in the TV show. Because of the delay, Barry fights a lot of average criminals, such as gangsters, drug lords, and evil scientists. The writers even take from soap operas, so viewers see the evil twins of Barry (a clone of Barry in “Twin Streaks”) and Tina (after a failed experiment in “Tina, Is That You?”). Each are a bit silly, but it gave the actors something different to do than reciting the lines.
Serial killer James Jesse (Mark Hamill) is wanted for murder in six states. To take on the Flash, he adopts a new persona, The Trickster (in the episode of the same name). The character is basically the Joker, a character Hamill would voice the following year in Batman: The Animated Series. The character returned in the series finale, “The Trial of the Trickster,” where he was assisted by a deranged fan, who wants to be his sidekick Prank, which is a proto version of Harley Quinn. Other Flash villains that appear are: Captain Cold and Mirror Master (David Cassidy), whose names give away how they commit crimes.
The video has been given a 1080p/MPEG-4 AVC encoded transfer displayed in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Sourced from new 4K scans of the original camera negatives, the colors present in bold hues. Blacks are inky and shadow delineation is strong. Fine texture detail is apparent. The one knock is some of the special-effects shots are betrayed by the high definition and don’t look as good as the scenes that bracket them. The audio is available in DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio. Dialogue is clear, the score is satisfactory, but the effects, particularly the action scenes featuring fights, gunfire, and explosions are limited.
Some viewers may enjoy this throwback to an earlier era, but after the superhero boom of the 21st century that saw a wide variety of stories told, including on a more successful reboot of The Flash (2014), this Flash pales in comparison with its always good, good guys defeating the always bad, bad guys on a studio lot in under an hour. Fans of the show and those curious should appreciate the high-definition video.
